Mikser is proud to announce the realization of the project “She walks alone through the city – Safer Kragujevac for all” in cooperation with the Office for Gender Equality in Serbia – UNW, with the support of the British Embassy and the partnership of five civil society organizations that will work to improve awareness of security challenges with faced by women and girls in five cities across Serbia: Sombor, Kruševac, Kragujevac, Niš, and Novi Pazar. This project is a natural continuation and builds on the legacy of the research “Tools for assessing the safety of women in public spaces” of the Women’s Architectural Society in collaboration with UNW on safety in the mentioned cities.
The city of Kragujevac was chosen due to its openness to gender policies, good cooperation between the public and civil sectors, and many Mikser’s local partners who will collaborate on the project, such as Arsenal Fest, which through its activities and programs, like Mikser, gathers and engages a large number of young people.
The campaign will last until August 2023 and will enable women and girls from Kragujevac to express their experiences, challenges, and potential solutions through participatory tools, empower and inspire them to become proactive, stand up for their rights, and cooperate with institutions with the idea of creating a better and a safer city for everyone. Our goal is to find solutions for gender inequalities that become most evident in everyday activities: on the streets, public transport, bus stops, parks, etc., and to present them to responsible institutions through public messages.
As the goal of the project is participatory mapping of challenges and collection of proposals to raise awareness about the (in)security of women in public spaces, in the coming period we will conduct detailed and targeted surveys for all citizens of Kragujevac, especially for girls and women, as well as a series of working groups and workshops with young people whose goal is to suppress the culture of tolerance for violence against women.
Hereby, we strive to give a voice to women, especially young ones, in support of the local initiative of this city to recognize all the challenges, personal experiences, and tactics that women develop in order to move as safely as possible and use their city as equal citizens.
The results of the survey and workshop will be followed by an information campaign and, finally, the preparation of intervention proposals in the form of a brochure “Safer Kragujevac for All” to improve the safety of women in public spaces in Kragujevac, from which all residents of this city will benefit.
Great support on this path will be provided by several local civil organizations that, through their previous work, have shown commitment to the ideas of gender equality, tolerance, cultural dialogue, and strengthening the participatory principle of cooperation between citizens and institutions. Thanks to them, through direct contact with representatives of sensitive social groups, we will work to overcome the technological and digital gap, i.e. the absence of digital literacy and access to electronic devices for communication so that these are not an obstacle to participation in the survey.
More information will soon be available on our website mikser.rs, as well as, on the social networks of all partner organizations.